1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a cleaning blade failure predictor and an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to a cleaning blade failure prediction processor for predicting a failure resulting from deformation of a cleaning blade that contacts and cleans a cleaning target, and to an image forming apparatus incorporating the cleaning blade failure prediction processor:
2. Background Art
Various types of electrophotographic image forming apparatuses are known, including copiers, printers, facsimile machines, or multifunction machines having two or more of copying, printing, scanning, facsimile, plotter, and other capabilities. Such image forming apparatuses usually form an image on a recording medium according to image data. Specifically, in such image forming apparatuses, for example, a charger uniformly charges a surface of a photoconductor serving as an image carrier. An optical writer irradiates the surface of the photoconductor thus charged with a light beam to form an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the photoconductor according to the image data. A development device supplies toner to the electrostatic latent image thus formed to render the electrostatic latent image visible as a toner image. The toner image is then transferred onto a recording medium directly, or indirectly via an intermediate transfer belt. Finally, a fixing device applies heat and pressure to the recording medium carrying the toner image to fix the toner image onto the recording medium.
In such image forming apparatuses, after the toner image is transferred from the photoconductor, there may be residual toner that fails to be transferred from the photoconductor and therefore remaining on the photoconductor. Similarly, after the toner image is transferred from the intermediate transfer belt, there may be residual toner that fails to be transferred from the intermediate transfer belt and therefore remaining on the intermediate transfer belt. To remove such residual toner, the image forming apparatuses typically include cleaners provided with cleaning blades that contact the photoconductor or the intermediate transfer belt to remove residual toner therefrom.